"It doesn't hurt?" Genma blinked, then reached out to place two fingertips against Hayate's throat, feeling for both pulse and chakra flow. "Your heart rate's erratic," he said, counting beats in his head. But it wasn't the sort of weak, pain-elevated hammering he expected. It felt amped up, surging. Hayate' s chakra, too, was a powerfully coursing flow. The soldier pill, at least, was still doing its work.

"How can it not hurt?" he asked. "Did I give you a higher dose than I took when we left?" The fact that he couldn't remember exactly how much or what kind of medicine he'd taken, or what he'd given Hayate to take, bothered him more than the fact his drugs had worn off so quickly.

"You're sure you're okay?"